Visual Resources, Vol. XV, pp. 203- 216
© 1999 OPA (Overseas Publishers Associati on) N.V.
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Published by license under
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the Harwood Academic Publishers imprint,
part of The Gordon and Breach Publishing Group.
Printed in Malaysia.
The Eternal Lady: An Analysis of
Andy Warhol's Jackie Series vis a vis
Friedrich Nietzsche's Eternal Return of
the Same
William V. Ganis
Jacques Derrida writes about the colossal in The Truth in Painting, pointing
out that the colossal is a concept of the sublime where something is
incomprehensively large and unapprehensive to human measure, "a concept which is 'almost too large for any presentation.' " 1 (Figure1)
For the serial art of Andy Warhol, this colossal sublime occurs not in
nature, but in the endless reproduction, dissemination, and simulacra created by photography and machines. Warhol's serial work is the "unpresentable presentation" of the infinite repetition of forms. Moreover, it is
this unnatural colossal sublime which acts as the parergon, "the side
effect," 2 which gives these works their power and larger meaning. Often
Warhol presents this unpresentable infinity by implication. By completely
covering the canvas with images, Warhol suggests that there is always
more beyond the picture plane, i.e., more Campbell's Soup cans and
Associated Press images of car crashes existing outside any one painting.
(Figure 2; Color Plate III) Indeed, this implied repetition exterior to the
painting takes place in the imagination. Gilles Deleuze points out that
"repetition is itself in essence imaginary ... it makes that which it contacts
appear as elements or cases of repetition." 3 In any serial Warhol work, the
parergon may not exist in the work itself, rather the parergon is the absent
repetition of a work's image located in other Warhol works and the repetition of similar image§ or objects situated in the rest of the world. The
parergon is constantly deferred based on the repetition of such works and
their endless reproduction. Depending on the context of perceiving
Warhol works, there seem to be multiple parergons (or at least the same
parergol'l. operating at different levels). One must ask what this parergon
203
Figure 1. Audy Wnrlio/, Jackie, 1964, Synthetic polymer paint nnd silkscreen ink 011 ca11v11S, 20" x 16".
©The Audy Warhol Fo1111dntion. (Courtesy of The Andy Wnrltol Foundation, New York)
Figure 2. Cobr Plate Ill. Audy Warhol, Jackie, 1964, Syutlretic polymer paint nnd silkscreen i11k 011 cn11vas,
20· x 16". ©Tire Andy Wnrlto/ Fo1111dntion. (Courtesy of The Andy Warhol Formdatiou, New York)
The Eternal Lady! 205
is, that defers and moves toward framing infinity. I will attempt to show
the parergon's nature vis avis Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the eternal
return of the same, which, like Warhol's works deals with problems of
repetition, difference, and history. (Figure 3)
Put simply, the eternal return of the same is the thought that the world
always recurs, that the actions we make have been repeated infinitely
before us and will be repeated infinitely thereafter. 4 This concept is not as
simple as saying that history repeats itself, because, as Deleuze points out,
"The eternal return does not bring back 'the same', but returning constitutes the only same of that which becomes."5 This concept of "the same"
demonstrates that the repetition is understanding the same from the basis
of each representation. However, Warhol in his representations does not
emphasize the world of difference, rather, his repeated works show that
representation is a receding perspective. Warhol's art makes the standard,
stereotyped, and repeated intensely perceptible. Rather than extract from
difference like the Abstract-Expressionist artists did in their celebration of
"autonomous" works, Warhol conceded to repetition.
Warhol's serial works operate on the principle that the infinite depictions invoke a foundation, 6 however, this "original" source is always
Figure 3. Andy War/lo/, Jackie, 1964, Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, 20" x 16".
©The Andy Warhol Fo1111d11tio11. (Courtesy of The Andy Wnrlrol Fo1111dntio11, New York)
2061 VISUAL RESOURCES
displaced in Warhol. Because the viewer of Warhol works is always aware
of his mu Iti pies, the eterna l reh1rn is unsubtle, yet there is still a fascination with finding "originality" in these works. Anyone visiting the Andy
Warhol Museum will be treated to the spectacle of the Warhol archives
which contains the source materials for Warhol's art works. Though the
archival goods have little monetary value compared to the art objects
made by Warhol, they are "fetishized as the lost object" in lieu of Warhol's
"hyperreal" 7 paintings. In these materials, one can see the master's
process of selection, choosing images for his works. These materials are
singular and hence more original than the paintings themselves in that
there is but one crop sheet and one silkscreen. However, upon closer
examination, we see that these archival ghosts used to make the art
works themselves are simulacra of simulacra. Warhol's art is, as Deleuze
defines simulacra, "not simple imitation but the act by which the very
idea of a model or privileged position (an original) is overturned." 8
(Figure 4)
Figure 4. A11dy Warhol, 35 Jackics, 1964, Sy111/1etic polymer paint mid silkscreen i11k 011 ca11vas, 35 pa11els,
each 20"x16". @-Tire Andy Warhol Fo1111datio11. (Courtesy ofTl1e A11dy Wnrlrol Fo1111datio11, New York)
The Eternal Lady! 207
Perhaps the Warhol works which best fit this examination of repetition
and simulacra are the Jackie series of paintings made in 1964. The fackies
themselves are derived from eight cropped photographs taken from
magazines such as Life and Look that documented the John F. Kenned y
assassination and its aftermath. The archival piece is a collection of
images culled from magazines in which hundreds of thousands of such
images were already reproduced in circulation copies. Of course the magazine images themselves were derived fro m a layout photo, which was
made from a pasteup. This pasteup included a pho tograph, which itself
was made from a negative. Thus one asks, "is the potential o riginal
Jacqueline Kennedy herself?" But, she too is returned in this endless game
of repetition. Mrs. Onassis was the 34th First Lad y of the United States,
and in this role stands in for all who mourned the loss of the president
that week. Most poignantly she is a reminder that before death all
humans are equal. (Figure 5)
Jacqueline Kennedy suffers from a further identity crisis as she is
made up by the media, thus rendering her a simulacra. Jackie is even an
•
Figure 5. Andy Wnrliol, Jackie, 1964, Sy11tlietic polymer pni11t n11d silkscreen i11k 011 cn11vns. 20" x '/6".
© Tl1ew.Andy Wnrliol Fo1111dntio11. (Courtesy ofTlll! Andy Wnrliol Fo1111dnlio11, New York)
2081 VISUAL RESOURCES
iconographic simulacra in the context of John F. Kennedy's assassination:
her image imports an idea (feeling) of the country's loss of its leader. In
addition, the media has labeled her the ideal lady, the perfect American
woman, even the closest thing we have to royalty. Surely, this heroization
is a media bastardization of the Platonic ideal, the defining notion from
which all forms are derived.9 (Perhaps Americans are all imperfect copies
of Jackie?)
There is more repetition, return, and simulacra beyond the Warhol
works. For each Warhol artwork, several four by five inch photographic
transparencies have been shot. These transparencies have each been used
dozens of times to reproduce the images by the thousands in articles,
catalogues, and even on consumer schlock like greeting cards and yo-yos.
The images seen here were photographed for different source catalogues,
from which thousands of institutions and individuals photograph, photocopy, etc. Through the levels of simulacra developing on each side of
Warhol's works, we see that the paintings are but a sequence of repetitions already preceded by the thousands and to be followed by the thousands. Reveling in the nature of seriality, Warhol shows a simultaneous
understanding of the past and the future of the images in these works. 10
On yet another level of examination, Warhol uses the screens from the
eight source photographs interchangeably, to create larger multi-paneled
works. Certainly in paintings like Sixteen ]ackies, or Jackie (The Week That
Was), the panels are placed in a random fashion, with the instances from
the JFK assassination story presented disjunctively. Note that the panels
in these larger collective works are the same dimensions, sixteen by
twenty inches, as those that are presented individually. In multi-paneled
works such as these Warhol plays with the composition by including
(in one space) various colors, doubled or further repeated images, and
flopped images that create an inverse doubling. The variations of images
seen in these multiple paneled works are due to the fact that Warhol
allowed his panel works to be interchangeable. Such interchangeability
also denies the concept of the original since the sixteen panels themselves
exist in the "frame" of a work which is potentially in compositional flux.
(Figure 6; Color Plate IV)
Also, these works permit an immediate comparison for the examination of the differences in framing each. .Jackie panel. "Framing" in this
sense means how Warhol and his assistants stretched each canvas. In producing these images, Warhol usually painted a large sheet of canvas a
selected color, and would then have an image silkscreened several times
on that canvas. Once the paint had dried, the canvas was cut and
The Eternal Lady/ 209
Fig11re 6. Color Plnte IV. A11dy Wnrlio/, 16 jackies, 1964, Sy11tlietic polymer pni11t n11d silkscree11 i11k
on cn11vns, 16 pa11e/s, encli 20" x 16". © Tire Andy Wnrliol Fo1111dntio11. (Co11rtesy of Tile A11dy Wnrliol
Fou11dntio11, New York)
stretched onto uniform purchased stretcher bars measuring twenty by
sixteen inches. As the screened image was slightly larger than the
stretched canvas' surface, some variation occurs in the visual presentation
of each image, giving the appearance of registration or mis-registration as
would be produced by a mechanical printing process. It is in this process
that Warhol causes any real dilierentiation in his images. Colors and registration vary slightly allowing the viewer to actually perceive differences
among the works. By comparing these slight differences one sees that
what is the same in each of these paintings simply returns unto the image
itself. Simultaneously, the similar returns to an other object for comparison.11 Thus the eternaJ return in Warhol's arena affirms difference within
the same. From the perspective of dissimilarity, no matter how slight, the
viewer can not deny the existence of similarity.
In his selection of photographic sources, Warhol redistributes the
images to defy narrative and confuse linear history. Notice in the work,
Jackie (The Week That Was), there is a condensation of time as the images
2101 VISUAL RESOURCES
are from Jackie riding in the motorcade seated with JFK, hatless beside the
Johnsons as Lyndon is sworn in, and in veiled mourning at the funeral
ceremonies.12 Of course, there is no narrative sequence presented in these
multiple paneled works since the incidents from which the images are
derived actually "bookend" the narrative of the Kennedy assassination.
Furthermore, the narrative rent asunder in these works is a means of
denying the linearity of history. This act is commensurate with Warhol's
active denial of the original insofar as we often consider historical facts
and firsts as sources of originality. These images are poignant disjunctive
memories that capture a general mood of the United States. These images
are a Before and After for the early sixties, showing the ostensible prosperity of "Camelot" and the shock of all who "remember where they were
when they heard the news" on November 22, 1963.
Jackie (The Week That Was) 13 is a parodistic title that Warhol derived
from a lampooning prime-time television show, That Was the Week That
Was. 14 This mockery of a title fits in with Warhol's idea that the sorrow of
the nation was instilled by the media at the time of JFK's death. Even
today it is a widely held conception that this incident changed the attitude of a country, even though the facts show that JFK himself was hardly
above corruption, and not able to live up to the martyrdom that the
media played up in 1963. Regarding the assassination, Warhol said "it
didn' t bother me that much that he was dead. What bothered me was
the way the television and radio programmed everybody to feel sad. It
seemed like no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get away from
the thing." 15 Warhol thus plays with the survivor figure with whom most
Americans empathized at this time. His manipulations of the joyful and
distraught Jackies suggest the manic swings in mood that the mass-media
is capable of inculcating in its consumers. We must remember that the
above reading of these multi-paneled paintings is only possible by recasting the parergonal frame from the individual panel to the collection of
sixteen canvases acknowledged as one work.
The parergon collectively framing Warhol's silkscreens also Qperates on
a level independent of any one image. In these works, the optical properties of the image are clear to the viewer. Since Warhol usually uses black
paint for his screened images, there is no real variation in tone. The image
has no real highlights or shadow, thus Wathol defies depth in his pictures.
What the viewer reads as the h1ghlights of these Warhol works is nothing
more than the negative space of the monochrome ground. Notice here
that I say ground and not background, for the figure-ground relationship
is not easily es~blished. Despite the fact that the black screened ink is
The Eternal Lady/ 211
on top of the painted surface, the monochrome in these works is not the
background as there is no depth. The monochrome is part of the medium
which makes the gestalt perception of the images possible at all. Indeed,
depth is eliminated in the Jackie dot pattern and this surface existence
fundamentally negates the image's "being." In negating the image it
is difficult to discuss difference (or images at all) since all of Warhol's
images are essentially perceived, in the same manner of diminished
extensity. When we reduce the Warhol image to its base elements of dot
and monochrome, we see that the "parts precede and make possible the
representation of the whole." Thus, as Kant would note, there are no
"internal differences" in the Warhol images, rather, difference would only
be perceived as an "external relation" that must be perceived by the
"empirical intuition" of the viewer. 15 From this perspective,.one could see
that the parergon exists in the optical properties which frame all of the
Warhol serial works, since all of the paintings, prints, and sculptures
operate with the same optical strategies and their images are all subject to
the same optical metaphysics.
Warhol made the dot, monochrome, and depth problem obvious in his
Shadows works of 1978. In these works, there are no recognizable images
for our gestalt sensibilities to tangle with. The images are seemingly fully
abstract; yet, like the Jackies, they are derived from photographs, blown-up,
contrast-increased in the making of the silkscreen, and painted. The figureground relationship is further problematized in these works by the fact
that Warhol painted the canvas surface in impasto expressionistic swaths
of Liquitex, thus the "grounds" in these works usually suggest more
depth than the black "figures." (Figure 7)
Warhol's images undoubtedly move toward the infinite, a sublime magnitude of repetition, but he also shows that there is a foil to the infinite
reproduction, the void. Warhol juxtaposed blank monochrome canvas panels with repeated images of disasters. In works like Silver Disaster or Mustard
Race Riot, of 1963, there is an effect of doubling the sublime. On one panel
there is an implication of the infinite, beginning with the filJing up of space
on a panel, and continuing in the repetition of the image in other works. The
infinite is further evoked in that image's reproduction in the media of newspaper and magazines from which Warhol drew his photographic sources.
The monochrome panel, which by it~. presence serves to double the sublime effect, displays an absence of repetition, an indifference. 17 Not only
does the monochrome lack the image of the. panel next to it, it contains
nothing. Once again the parergon is recast as it contains both the infinite
and the voW. of nothingness that opposes the infinite. (Figure 8)
212/ VISUAL RESOURCES
Figure 7. A11dy Wnr/10/, Shadow, 1978, Sy11thetic polymer pni11t n11d silkscree11i11k011 cn11vns, 14 " by 11 ".
©The Audy Wnrhol Fo1111dntio11. (Courtesy of tlie Andy Wnrllol Fo1111dntio11, New York)
Probably the most important aspect of Warhol's art objects that is constantly overlooked by scholars is Warhol's ability to "play" the art market
by creating works containing the same images in both paintings and prints.
For the Jackie series of paintings made in 1964, Warhol produced over
325 works, some of which are made up of multiple panels. The art market
however, regards each one of these paintings as a Warhol "original," thus
the price of each work is commensurable with unique paintings by other
artists. The confusion sets in when one considers that Warhol allowed
numbered limHed edition prints of Jackie to be pubHshed as well. In 1966,
three different versions of Jackie were pubHshed each in an edition of
200 prints. Each print of the first series (Jackie I),18 consists of a single image
of Jackie with JFK in the Dallas motorcade. The second print series (Jackie
Il), 19 contains something uniq~e to the Jackie series-each print has two
images on one page (panel). In this print, a doubHng of the image takes
place inside the boundaries of one piece of paper. The third print series
(Jackie III),20 sha.ws a microcosm of the earlier multiple paneled paintings
The Eternal Lady/213
Figure 8. Andy Warhol, Mustard Race Riot, 1963, Synthetic polymer paint a11d silkscreen ink on ca11vas,
Two panels, each 114" by 82". © The Andy Warhol Foundation. (Courtesy of Phillips/Schwab, The Andy
Warhol Foundation, New York)
such as Jackie (The Week that Was). Four different images of the First Lady
are juxtaposed on a single sheet in each print of this series. (Figure 9)
In printmaking, the concept of an edition is that of limiting the repetition, and the numbering of each print is a means of quality control for the
prints. Traditionally, editions of wood block prints and etchings were
numbered due to the wear to the soft material plates that occurred with
each printing repetition. With these methods of printing, the finest details
were often lost in the later repetitions, thus collectors sought the prints
struck first, corresponding to the lowest numbers. This privileging of the
primary prints struck by a certain plate is the means by which print
connoisseurs retain the idea of the "aura of the original" as defined by
Walter Benjam~. 21 Since the first prints have a higher degree of integrity
reflecting the artist's conception, they are closest to the idea of the original. Warhol's method of making prints, however, is antithetical to this valuation process since his printing plate was a silkscreen which if kept
@lean, would not deteriorate during the creation of the prints. Despite the
2141VISUAL RESOURCES
Figure 9. A11dy Warhol, Jacqueline Kennedy Ill Oackie W), 1966, Scree11pai11t 011 paper, 40" x 30".
©Tire Audy Warhol Fo1111dation. (Courtesy of The A11dy Warhol Fo1111datio11, New York)
uniformity in quality, Warhol's prints are still vestigially numbered and
the lowest numbers are still the most valuable. Looking again at the problem of the relationship between Warhol's prints and paintings, one concludes that all of these images are rendered by the same process, but the
art market differentiates the value based on whether such an image is
reproduced on canvas or paper. This quality determines whether a particular Jackie is worth a few thousand dollars or tens of thousands of dollars.
Remember that this differentiation in price is usually determined by the
relative rarity of the original compared with the multiple. It is an amazing
fact that this differential valuation still occurs in the auction and gallery
market today, although it has clearly been determined that any one panel
of a Jackie on canvas is hardly an original. Moreover, these paintings are
not numbered or valued according to number, though in reality they have
been executed just like a print. Because the Jackie prints are derived from
the paintings, and the paintings themselves are not numbered, it is
impossible to say that there is any "original" Jackie.
The Eternal Lady! 215
Warhol once said "I think every painting should be the same size and
the same color so they're all interchangeable and nobody thinks they have
a better painting or a worse painting ... Besides even when the subject is
different, people want the same painting." 22 "And they'd all be masterpieces because they'd all be the same painting."23 In light of this statement one remembers that the screened images in Warhol works were
all produced in the same way, and this collective of images produced by
similar means parergonally "frames" a majority of the works in Warhol's
oeuvre. Of course, any one of these images stands in and refers to not only
images of its likeness, but due to similarity in process, all of Warhol's
screened works. For any Warhol serial, the overarching subjects are repetition, levels of simulacra, and an image's potential for infinite representation. Of course, the choice of the image's subject results in that subject's
being carried by the vehicle of endless return, and often results in that
image becoming decorative or having that image's sense of "originality"
debased. Warhol once said "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol,
just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am.
There's nothing behind it."24 This statement suggests that the image
choices in his works were unimportant for him, and at this all encompassing level of examination, the meanings derived from the proliferation of
any image are incidental and overdetermined. What the viewer really
sees is the surface of painted monochromes, and silkscreened dots that
have been repeated ad infinitum. The viewer must not forget, however,
that the slight differences in Warhol's works are also made perceptible
by the process of the eternal return. It is precisely these subtle differences
that make the collective images visually interesting and which can make
the parergon return from the infinite to the individual canvas.
NOTES
1. Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Pail/ting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 125.
2. Mary Rawlinson, "Philosophy and Art'' lectures, State University of New York, Stony Brook,
1996.
3. Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1994), p. 76.
4. Joan Stambaugh, The Problem of Time in Nietzsche, trans. John F. Humphrey, (Lewisburg, PA:
Bucknell University Press, 1987), p. 163. •·
5. Deleuze, p. 41.
6. Ibid., p. 49.
7. For more on the festishized lost object see Jean BaudriUard, "The Hyper-realism of
Simulation", in Jean Bm1drillard: Selected Writings, Mark Poster, ed., trans. Charles Levin, (Stanford,
198~ p. 143-47.
2161 VISUAL RESOURCES
8. Deleuze, p. 69.
9. Ibid., p. 60.
10. Donald E. Carr, The Eternal Return, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1968), p. 109.
11. Deleuze, p. 300.
12. David Bourdon, Warhol, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989), p. 181.
13. Due to certain legal considerations this image for Jackie (The Week That Was) was unavailable
for reproduction, however, it has been reproduced in Andy Warhol: A Retrospective, ed. Kynaston
Mohine, (New York: The Museum of Modem Art, 1989), p.' 240, and Andy Warhol: Death and Disasters,
(Houston TX: Houston Fine Art Press, 1988), p. 115.
,
14. Andy Warhol: Death and Disastps, (Houston TX: Houston Fine Art Press, 1988), p . 114.
15. Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, Popism: The Warhol Sixties, (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co.,
1980), p. 60.
16. Deleuze, p. 232.
17. Ibid., p. 28.
18. This print corresponds to F&S number Il.13 in Frayda Feldman and Jorg Schellmann, Andy
Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonni, (New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 1997), p. 60.
19. Ibid., print F&S number Il.14, p. 60.
20. Ibid., print F&S number Il.15, p. 60.
21. Walter Benjamin, ''The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Video Culttlre, p. 30.
22. Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again), (New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1975), p. 149.
23. Ibid., p. 148.
24. Andy Warhol: A Retrospective, ed. Kynaston Mohine, (New York: The Museum of Modem Art,
1989), p . 457.